Little wonder the state of the weather is such an incessant topic of conversation among people living in Ottawa. Nature's ongoing presentations seem on a constant rampage of change, sometimes dissonant to the season. Here in the Ottawa Valley, weather conditions seem so volatile, one never knows from one day to the next what will present itself.

The last few weeks of September leading into October were extraordinarily temperate, with little rain, an amplitude of sunshine and temperature more akin to June than late September. This was followed by a week or more of pounding rain, high winds and unseasonably chilly temperature when we began to look about for mittens, hats and warmer jackets venturing out into the woods.

And then, summer returned, gifting us once again with balmy temperatures seasoned with rain events. Because the foliage is just yet in the midst of its shedding, there are still ample leaves left on the trees in the woods, sufficient to continue to give us a somewhat comfortable shelter under its canopy from rain. Mostly we wear light raingear, but it was too warm in the prevailing temperature up to last week, and often we preferred to go without, coming back home again after our hours-long jaunts more than a little damp.

Now, the weather has turned again, veering back into the normal range for mid-October, the forest canopy has declined even more, and the need to wear rainjackets obvious. We're growing accustomed to feeling the rain in our faces, as long as it isn't pounding rain. So we amble along in light rain events, enjoying the colours displayed on the forest floor with still-vibrant leaves loosing themselves from their perches and wafting down on the humid air, lazily taking their place among the piles already there.

The amplitude of yellows, enhanced greatly in tone by rain, creates a feeling of openness, light where dark prevails above in the sky, and makes us feel so fortunate to have this landscape at our disposal. Walking in the rain has never been so pleasurable. My husband smiling indulgently at me as I hummed "Walking in the Rain", as we plodded through the raw areas on trails where tracked vehicles have turned up the clay soil, our boots squishing along (unpleasantly) in the resulting mess.

And then there's the requirement to be a little more adventurous as our normal circuit has been cut off with the removal of the connecting bridges. So we've had to reinvent our daily walking routine in the ravine, seeking out other avenues of access to enable us to make what will pass for a circuit, giving us access to our old familiar trail system.